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Tech-n-law-ogy

Subtitle
with author John Palfrey, Head of School at Phillips Academy, Andover
Teaser

Often in today’s political climate our commitments to liberty and equality are set at odds with one another. This tension is nowhere more evident than when we pit free expression against our goals for a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society. This book explores these tensions and seeks ways to make progress toward shared goals, for campuses and societies alike.

Can diversity and free expression co-exist on our campuses? How about in our town squares, our cities, and our world? Join us for a discussion of two of the foundational values of our democracy in the digital age.

John graduated from Harvard College, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard Law School. He was a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar to the University of Cambridge and the U.S. EPA Gold Medal (highest national award).

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featuring Nathaniel Raymond, founding Director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health
Teaser

How is technology changing humanitarian crises? Is information humanitarian aid? Do we need a new Geneva Convention for cyberwarfare?

Tuesday, October 24, 2017 at 12:00 pmBerkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard UniversityHarvard Law School campus
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C, Room 2036 (HLS campus map)RSVP required to attend in person
Event will be live webcast at 12:00 pm

Information communication technologies and the data they produce are transforming how natural and manmade disasters alike unfold. These technologies are also affecting how populations behave and organizations respond when these events occur. This talk will address the ethical, legal and technical implications of this pivotal moment in the history of humanitarianism.

About Nathaniel

Nathaniel Raymond is the founding Director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. He has over fifteen years of experience as a humanitarian aid worker and human rights investigator. Raymond was formerly director of operations for the George Clooney-founded Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) at HHI.
Raymond served in multiple roles with Oxfam America and Oxfam International, including in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, and elsewhere. He has published multiple popular and peer-reviewed articles on human rights, humanitarian issues, and technology in publications including the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, the Lancet, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and many others.

Raymond served in 2015 as a consultant on early warning to the UN Mission in South Sudan and as a technical consultant to Home Box Office on detainee abuse during the Bush Administration. He was a 2013 PopTech Social Innovation Fellow and is a co-editor of the technology issue of Genocide Studies and Prevention. Raymond and his Signal Program colleagues were prize winners in the 2013 USAID/Humanity United Tech Challenge for Mass Atrocity Prevention and received the 2012 U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Industry Intelligence Achievement Award.

Our society is blessed with new technologies yet also burdened with numerous and novel disputes as they are used. In his new book Digital Justice: Technology and the Internet of Disputes, Professor Katsh looks at many of these disputes, why they arise, how they may be resolved and, in some cases, even prevented.

Ebay resolves 60 million disputes a year and Alibaba 100 million. How do they do that? At the other less impressive extreme, in 2015 the IRS hung up on telephone callers 8.8 million times without making contact. Are there online solutions for that? Disputes are a “growth industry” on the internet, an inevitable by-product of innovation but often harmful to individuals. Drawing on his recent book, Digital Justice: Technology and the Internet of Disputes, (co-authored with Orna Rabinovich), Professor Katsh will consider opportunities for online dispute resolution and prevention in ecommerce, health care, social media. employment and the courts.

About Ethan

Professor Katsh is widely recognized as one of the founders of the field of online dispute resolution (ODR). Along with Janet Rifkin, he conducted the eBay Pilot Project in 1999 that led to eBay’s current system that handles over sixty million disputes each year. With Professor Rifkin, he wrote Online Dispute Resolution: Resolving Conflicts in Cyberspace (2001), the first book about ODR. Since then, he has published numerous articles about ODR and co-edited Online Dispute Resolution: Theory and Practice, which received the International Institute for Conflict Resolution book award for 2012. The frequently mentioned metaphor of technology as a “Fourth Party” was first proposed in Katsh and Rifkin’s Online Dispute Resolution (2001).

Professor Katsh is a graduate of the Yale Law School and was one of the first legal scholars to recognize the impact new information technologies would have on law. In The Electronic Media and the Transformation of Law (Oxford University Press, 1989) and Law in a Digital World (Oxford University Press, 1995), he predicted many of the changes that were to come to law and the legal profession. His articles have appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Legal Forum, and other law reviews and legal periodicals. His scholarly contribution in the field of law and technology has been the subject of a Review Essay in Law and Social Inquiry.

Professor Katsh has served as principal online dispute resolution consultant for the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), a federal agency mandated to provide mediation in Freedom of Information Act disputes. During 2010-2011, he was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Haifa (Israel). He has been Visiting Professor of Law and Cyberspace at Brandeis University and is on the Board of Editors of Conflict Resolution Quarterly. He was principal dispute resolution advisor to SquareTrade.com and is Chairman of the Board of Advisors of Modria.com. His principal current research concern involves issues related to health care and, more particularly, to disputes over electronic health records (see How Patients Can Improve the Accuracy of their Medical Records).

Since 1996, Professor Katsh has been involved in a series of activities related to online dispute resolution. He participated in the Virtual Magistrate project and was founder and co-director of the Online Ombuds Office. In 1997, with support from the Hewlett Foundation, he and Professor Rifkin founded the National Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution at the University of Massachusetts. During the Summer of 1999, he co-founded Disputes.org, which later worked with eResolution to become one of the first four providers accredited by ICANN to resolve domain name disputes. From 2004 – 2010, Professor Katsh was co-Principal Investigator, with Professors Lee Osterweil and Lori Clarke and Dr. Norman Sondheimer of the UMass Department of Computer Science, of two National Science Foundation funded projects to model processes of online dispute resolution. This work was coordinated with the United States National Mediation Board.

Professor Katsh has chaired the International Forums on Online Dispute Resolution, held in Geneva in 2002 and 2003, Melbourne in 2004, Cairo in 2006, Liverpool in 2007, Hong Kong in 2007, Victoria (Canada) in 2008, Haifa (Israel) in 2009, Buenos Aires in 2010, Chennai (India) in 2011, Prague in 2012, Montreal in 2013, Silicon Valley in 2014, New York in 2015 and The Hague and Beijing in 2016 and in Paris in June 2017. Professor Katsh received the Chancellor’s Medal and gave the University of Massachusetts Distinguished Faculty Lecture in October 2006. In 2014-2015, he was an Affiliate of Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. He is the 2017 recipient of the D’Alemberte-Raven Award from the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution.

The March for Science went viral when it was nothing more than a name -- the very idea of a movement in defense of science in policy was enough to ignite the passion of more than one million people around the world. From January 24 to April 22, the movement lived on the internet, building on social media until it culminated in the largest science event in the history of the world.

The March for Science is a global movement focused on promoting science and its role in society and policy. That movement can be traced back to January 24, where in a five hour period @sciencemarchdc went from a few dozen followers to tens of thousands, growing exponentially in the following weeks. The idea for a March for Science went viral before any plan was in place, passionate supporters ready to act when all we had was the name. As we look to learn from the experience of the march -- the triumphs and the struggles -- it's worth discussing how MFS and future movements can harness the incredible, unexpected passion for a cause into a lasting movement.

About Caroline

Caroline Weinberg, MD, MPH, is a public health researcher and educator, with a focus on social determinants of health and increased health literacy as a means of improving health outcomes in under-served communities. Since 2002, she has also worked as a health educator with an emphasis on reproductive health and healthy relationships in adolescents.

In 2017, her frustration with the persistent and pervasive anti-science policies that jeopardize our present and future led to her involvement in the March for Science, a global movement focused on promoting the role of science in society and policy. She served as the National Co-Chair for the March for Science, culminating in the largest science event in history and uniting more than one million people in 600 locations worldwide. She currently serves as a director of the March for Science organization, working with a dynamic team of science advocates around the globe to transition from a powerful moment to a lasting movement.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at 12:00 pmBerkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard UniversityHarvard Law School campus
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East B, Room 2036 (HLS campus map)RSVP required to attend in person
Event will be live webcast at 12:00 pm

Please join us to hear the Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation, Katherine Maher, in discussion with Harvard Law School Professor Yochai Benker on the topic, "Will Wikipedia exist in 20 years?"

About Katherine

From Wikipedia: Katherine Roberts Maher is the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, a position she has held since June 2016. Previously she was chief communications officer. In addition to a background in the field of information and communications technology (ICT), Maher has worked in the non-profit and international sectors focusing on the use of technology to empower human rights and international development, specifically improving communities, promoting inclusivity and transparency, and deepening participation.

About Yochai

Yochai Benkler is the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Before joining the faculty at Harvard Law School, he was Joseph M. Field '55 Professor of Law at Yale. He writes about the Internet and the emergence of networked economy and society, as well as the organization of infrastructure, such as wireless communications.

This summer six students from around the world remotely worked on the development of open source projects with mentorship from members of the Berkman Klein community through the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program.

This summer six students from around the world remotely worked on the development of open source projects with mentorship from members of the Berkman Klein community through the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program. Designed to introduce students to the development of open source software (or software whose code is openly available to be viewed, altered, or improved), the program pays selected students a stipend to work as interns at organizations supporting open source software projects.

While separate from the Berkman Klein Center’s flagship on-site Summer Internship Program, the GSoC program is similar in that it aligns with and furthers the Center’s commitments to education, diversity, and network-building.

“The GSoC initiative matches the Berkman Klein Center’s mission of building out into cyberspace and making tools freely available to the public and researchers,” said Ellen Popko, the staff technologist who oversees the Berkman Klein Center’s involvement with GSoC. “The program allows students to acquire real world working experience as they learn about workflows, development cycles, and working with developers.”

The students worked on several projects under the guidance of Berkman Klein community members:

Dongge Liu, a master’s student of software engineering at the University of Melbourne in Australia, used machine learning to implement topic creation in Media Cloud, a joint project of the Berkman Klein Center and the MIT Media Lab that is an open-source platform for studying media ecosystems. Liu was mentored by Linas Valiukas, a former GSOC student who has continued to work remotely with the Berkman Klein Center from Lithuania on Media Cloud for the past five years. (Read more about this work on GitHub.)

Gaurav Koley, obtaining his master’s in information technology at the International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore, India, worked on the Berkman Klein Center’s BookANook project with support from Berkman Klein mentors Jessica Yurkofsky and Justin Clark. BookANook is an open source tool that makes it easier for users to reserve a room in community spaces, like a study room in a library. Gaurav worked to improve the tool’s overall user interface. (Learn more about this project on GitHub.)

Morgan Gangwere, a communications student at the University of New Mexico, worked under the mentorship of Berkman Klein affiliate Jason Griffey on the LibraryBox project. The LibraryBox website describes itself as an “open source, portable digital file distribution tool that enables delivery of vital information to individuals with no internet.” (Read more about this work on GitHub.)

Kumar Shubham, a computer science and engineering student at VIT University in Chennai, India, worked on the Teem project, an application that allows potential collaborators to connect with community projects they would like to support, under the supervision of Berkman Klein fellow Samer Hassan and Antonio Tenorio-Fornés. This summer Kumar helped make Teem more open and connected to other popular online services by implementing a contextual link preview, embedding functions, and sharing functions across various social media platforms. (Read more about this work on GitHub.)

David Llop, a master’s student studying security in ICT at the Open University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain, worked with the SwellRT team with direction from Berkman Klein fellow Samer Hassan and Pablo Ojanguren. He helped provide end-to-end encryption to SwellRT in order to enhance user privacy. (Read more about this work on GitHub.)

To participate in the GSoC program, a potential mentor organization applies to and must be accepted by the Google Open Source Office. Students then propose projects directly to the mentor organization, which then selects the students it would like to work with. Students must be currently enrolled in a university program and eligible to work in their home country. If they meet all the obligations over the course of the internship, they receive a stipend from Google.

This summer, the program accepted more than 200 mentor organizations, of which just a handful are academic institutions.

"We are excited to provide an opportunity for rising coders to work on academic research with open source principles,” said Sebastian Diaz, Director of Technology at the Berkman Klein Center. “Academic groups are building and sharing cool things, too.”

The Berkman Klein Center first began its involvement with Google Summer of Code in 2010, and since then a handful of GSoC students have continued to work with the Center on a variety of projects. In addition to Linas Valiukas, who works on Media Cloud, Miriam Marrouf, a 2016 GSoC student from Egypt worked on Internet Monitor and other Berkman Klein projects throughout the past academic year. Chaitanya Choudhary, another 2016 GSoC intern, came to Cambridge this summer from India as a member of our onsite summer internship program. Choudhary continued his development work on the DotPlot tool.

“This program allows us access to student we wouldn’t normally be working with,” said Popko. It’s rewarding to be able to work with students from so many different backgrounds and on a global scale.”

GSoC student Morgan Gangwere said he has enjoyed the mentorship aspect of the program. “Jason [Griffey] is a fantastic mentor, giving me a huge amount of support on keeping me on track and getting things done,” he said. Morgan worked to move LibraryBox over to a new kind of hardware, the Raspberry Pi.

“This will do a huge number of things for the project,” said Griffey. “It frees us from the whims of commercial hardware that we've been using and that has become increasingly locked-down and hard to customize, it gives users a more powerful platform to build new and exciting customizations on, and it gives the project itself the ability to start fresh with a new architecture that we can use in different ways to meet the needs of our users.”

You can read more about the GSoC Summer 2017 projects from the students’ perspectives on the Geek Cave blog.

This case study of Ammon, Idaho’s city-run fiber-optic network describes an unusual strategy for encouraging retail Internet service competition and innovation. Cities, towns and counties seeking to help their citizens and businesses by building fiber-optic networks may do so under a number of models, including building unused or “dark” fiber and then finding private providers to install network electronics and provide services. By contrast, Ammon decided to take all the steps required to operate the network, then use a technology called network virtualization to make it very easy for retail providers to provide services, which are then presented to users via an online dashboard. In theory, Ammon’ s residences and businesses can take multiple services simultaneously, create private networks within Ammon’s city network, and obtain city services and emergency alerts over the network even if they don’t take an Internet access subscription. As of the date of publication, two ISPs have started to provide service, and Ammon itself has developed certain public safety applications. Though at an early stage, the project represents a versatile technological and operational model for other public fiber networks.

Zero rating, which allows users to access select Internet services and content without incurring mobile data charges, is not a new concept. But it has become an object of debate as mobile carriers and major app providers have used it in the developing world to attract customers, with the goal of increasing Internet access and adoption. While some feel these programs violate net neutrality and create the potential for a two-tiered Internet, others argue that zero rating programs bring the developing world online and could be modified to uphold, rather than violate, net neutrality principles. At the same time, little research evaluating zero rating programs exists, and many different program formulations are lumped under the term “zero rating,” some of which are more compatible with net neutrality than others. In March of 2016, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society gathered a diverse group of stakeholders from academia, the media, the government sector, industry, and the open software community to discuss the use of zero rating as a means to improve Internet adoption in the developing world and how and when it could be an effective tool, if at all. This paper captures the resulting dialogue and recommendations. The workshop summary is followed by a collection of briefing papers representing the viewpoints of many of the workshop participants.

KEY FINDINGS

Many different models of industry initiatives currently fall into the loose definition of zero rating. Creating a better defined taxonomy of program parameters, technical mechanisms, and impacts may allow for greater nuance and understanding in the field, as well as more targeted regulatory responses.

Universal Internet access and adoption is a common goal but one that requires significant investment in global infrastructure. Some assert that zero rating programs may serve as a helpful stopgap measures to increase access, while others argue that these programs contribute to the creation of a tiered internet ecosystem without providing meaningful benefits to the targeted beneficiaries.

Zero rating initiatives may be employed in pursuit of goals other than Internet adoption, such as emergency services messages or security updates, and the goals of a particular program may make it more or less controversial.

More empirical research is required to fully assess the impact of specific zero rating initiatives, as well as zero rating generally, on Internet adoption in the developing world. This research will sometimes require access to usage information held by mobile carriers and zero rating service providers that should be handled with user privacy in mind.

Technology and elections and the politics of technology​. How use of technology in Kenyan elections is shaping Internet freedom in Africa.

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Wednesday, October 4, 2017 at 12:00 pmBerkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University23 Everett Street, Second Floor, Conference Room (campus map)RSVP required to attend in person
Event will be live webcast on this page at 12:00 pm

Kenya held general elections on August 8, 2017. The presidential election was nullified due to irregularities and is set for a repeat on October 26, 2017. Technology played a key role in the polls at two levels - there was use of tech in aspects such as results transmission and social media was employed massively in political campaigns with propaganda and fake news flowing freely. The talk will explore emerging trends in use of technology in elections and their effect on Internet freedom and what to expect as Kenya gears up for repeat elections.

About Grace

Grace was a 2016/17 OTF Information Controls Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center studying freedom online during election periods in East Africa. She analysed freedom online in the Uganda elections of 2016 and is part of an election observer mission in Kenya's 2017 elections.
Grace is also an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and an associate at the Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) where she carries out ICT policy and legal analysis.

Do we already have the necessary trust in AI, and if not, how do we create it?

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Urs Gasser shares some thoughts on how we learn to trust new technologies in a time of rapid change:

We are witnessing a wave of AI-based technologies that make their way out of the labs into industry- and user-facing applications, and we know from history that trust is an important factor that shapes the adoption of new technology. Given today’s quicksilver AI environment, it seems fair to ask: Do we already have the necessary trust in AI, and if not, how do we create it?

Subtitle
Researching Social Media, Online Platforms, and Algorithmic Systems From the Outside
Teaser

Join us at the University of Michigan for a discussion with Eric Gilbert, Cedric Langbort, Jeff Larson, Casey Pierce, and Christo Wilson on how researchers can navigate and investigate huge and complex datasets, algorithms, and online platforms to improve transparency and accountability.

The equations of big-data algorithms have permeated almost every aspect of our lives. A massive industry has grown up to comb and combine huge data sets — documenting, for example, Internet habits — to generate profiles of individuals. These often target advertising, but also inform decisions on credit, insurance and more. They help to control the news or adverts we see, and whether we get hired or fired. They can determine whether surveillance and law-enforcement agencies flag us as likely activists or dissidents — or potential security or criminal threats….Largely absent from the widespread use of such algorithms are the rules and safeguards that govern almost every other aspect of life in a democracy. There is an asymmetry in algorithmic power and accountability…Fortunately, a strong movement for greater algorithmic accountability is now under way. Researchers hope to find ways to audit for bias….Society needs to discuss in earnest how to rid software and machines of human bugs.

Join us at the University of Michigan for a discussion with Solon Barocas, J. Nathan Matias, H. V. Jagadish, and Christian Sandvig on the potential for discrimination and digital redlining posed by the development of purportedly neutral algorithms.

…[Personalization] leaves room for subtle and not-so-subtle forms of discrimination in pricing, services, and opportunities….[A]lgorithmic decisions raise the specter of ‘redlining’ in the digital economy–the potential to discriminate against the most vulnerable classes of our society under the guise of neutral algorithms.

The Berkman Klein Center summer internship program is a cohesive, integrated experience that brings together students from around the world to work closely with faculty, staff, and fellows on a wide range of projects and initiatives related to the internet and society.

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The Berkman Klein Center summer internship program is a cohesive, integrated experience that brings together students from around the world to work closely with faculty, staff, and fellows on a wide range of projects and initiatives related to the internet and society. Over the last ten years, more than 400 interns have joined us in Cambridge to conduct research, exchange ideas, gain exposure to new areas for exploration and study, expand networks, and form friendships. Providing this 10-week intensive paid experience for students from a wide range of backgrounds and areas of interest, ranging from high school to PhD level, is one of the main ways the Center demonstrates its commitments to education, diversity, and network-building. The length of time and intensity of the experience allows interns to form lasting bonds with each other and with the Berkman Klein Center. Many interns return to join us as staffers or fellows, or stay in our network through ongoing projects or by joining a peer institution.

While the Center has provided opportunities for students to participate in our research projects since it’s earliest days, it was in 2008 that we began a deliberate effort to provide a structured community experience for a cohort of interns, and since then the program has grown considerably. In 2008, we welcomed 31 interns drawn from a pool of 66 applicants. This summer, we welcomed nearly 50 interns to Cambridge selected from a pool of more than 1,000 applicants. From the beginning, the summer interns have reflected the global nature of our community, with seven countries represented in our 2008 cohort, and more than 15 countries, including Colombia, Spain, Nigeria, and India, represented in 2017.

For an intern’s inside look at the summer 2017 experience, visit Summer Snapshot 2017, created by BKC communications intern Tym Yee. And check out the the summer internship page for more information about the program and to learn when and how to apply.

How do we prepare court systems, judges, lawyers, and defendants to interact with autonomous systems? What are the potential societal costs to human autonomy, dignity, and due process from the use of these systems in our judicial systems?

Tuesday, October 10, 2017 at 12:00 pmBerkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard UniversityHarvard Law School campus
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C, Room 2036 (HLS campus map)RSVP required to attend in person
Event will be live webcast at 12:00 pm

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society will host a talk focused on the evolution of artificial intelligence, with a particular emphasis on ethics, governance, and criminal and social justice. Drawing from the research, community building, and educational efforts undertaken as part of our Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence initiative, we will hold a discussion to share and reflect on insights from ongoing activities related to the judiciary and fairness. Key questions that animate our work include: how do we prepare court systems, judges, lawyers, and defendants to interact with autonomous systems? What are the potential societal costs to human autonomy, dignity, and due process from the use of these systems in our judicial systems?

The discussion will be led by Harvard Law School Clinical Professor and Director of the Cyberlaw Clinic Chris Bavitz in conversation with special guests. This event will be live-streamed and archived on the Berkman Klein Center website.

About Chris Bavitz

Christopher T. Bavitz is Managing Director of Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, based at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He is also a Clinical Professor of Law at HLS, where he co-teaches the Counseling and Legal Strategy in the Digital Age seminar and teaches the seminar, Music & Digital Media. Chris concentrates his practice on intellectual property and media law, particularly in the areas of music, entertainment, and technology. He oversees many of the Clinic’s projects relating to copyright, speech, and advising of startups, and he serves as the HLS Dean’s Designate to Harvard’s Innovation Lab. Prior to joining the Clinic, Chris served as Senior Director of Legal Affairs for EMI Music North America. From 1998-2002, Chris was a litigation associate at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and RubinBaum LLP / Rubin Baum Levin Constant & Friedman, where he focused on copyright and trademark matters. Chris received his B.A., cum laude, from Tufts University in 1995 and his J.D. from University of Michigan Law School in 1998.

The Internet has oft been billed as the great equalizer, breaking down barriers and increasing access to information and ideas. At the same time, it has allowed for the proliferation of abuse online – whether in the form of hate, harassment or offensive content. The freedom to express oneself is an important principle, but should it persist unfettered? How and where should we draw the line, and who – or what – should play a role in moderating online debate? Monika Bickert, Facebook’s Head of Global Policy Management, and Jonathan Zittrain, Faculty Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and Harvard professor, discuss online abuse and the role that technology can play in addressing it.

About Monika

Monika Bickert is Facebook’s Head of Global Policy Management. Her global team manages the policies for what types of content can be shared on Facebook and how advertisers and developers can interact with the site. She also manages the company’s response to terrorist content online. Monika originally joined Facebook in 2012 as lead security counsel, advising the company on matters including child safety and data security.

Prior to joining Facebook, Monika served as Resident Legal Advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, where she specialized in Southeast Asian rule of law development, including Southeast Asian governments’ response to terrorist insurgencies, child exploitation, and human trafficking. She also served as an Assistant United States Attorney for 11 years in Washington, DC, and Chicago, prosecuting federal crimes ranging from public corruption to gang-related violence. During her time in Chicago, Monika was the Northern District of Illinois’ coordinator for the prosecution of crimes against children, and she also received the Investigation of the Year award from Drug Enforcement Administration for U.S. v. James Austin, et al., a prosecution of 50 gang members and associates for coordinated narcotics trafficking that caused over a dozen deaths.

Monika received a B.A. from Rice University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

About Jonathan

Jonathan Zittrain is the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at the Harvard Law School Library, and co-founder of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. His research interests include battles for control of digital property and content, cryptography, electronic privacy, the roles of intermediaries within Internet architecture, human computing, and the useful and unobtrusive deployment of technology in education.

He performed the first large-scale tests of Internet filtering in China and Saudi Arabia, and as part of the OpenNet Initiative co-edited a series of studies of Internet filtering by national governments: Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering; Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace; and Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Board of Advisors for Scientific American. He has served as a Trustee of the Internet Society and as a Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum, which named him a Young Global Leader. He was a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Federal Communications Commission, and previously chaired the FCC’s Open Internet Advisory Committee. His book The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop Itpredicted the end of general purpose client computing and the corresponding rise of new gatekeepers. That and other works may be found at <http://www.jz.org>.

Cross-border data access reform may be on the legislative agenda in late 2017, with recent House and Senate judiciary committee hearings revisiting the topic. In light of this increasing interest, we thought it would be helpful to provide a brief primer on how cross-border data access requests currently work, options for reform, and major challenges to reform ahead. This document presents a short, high-level background review of the debate as it currently stands, particularly focusing on the DOJ’s 2016 proposal for reform.*

Governments need evidence to investigate and prosecute crimes, but increasingly that evidence takes the form of data stored on the servers of U.S. tech companies. In July 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released draft legislation that would address some of the challenges foreign governments face when seeking data related to criminal investigations from U.S. companies. Interest in making such changes continues to grow, with relevant laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), maybe seeing Congressional attention in late 2017, especially as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) comes up for renewal.

To access electronic content – including email, social media messages, and more – held by U.S. companies, a foreign country currently relies primarily on the processes set out in agreements called Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs), if that country has negotiated one with the U.S. MLATs with the U.S. require countries to meet U.S. legal standards when making requests for electronic content data, with less strict standards for metadata. Countries have grown frustrated with both the normative implications of the MLAT process and its typical lengthiness.

After substantial debate, and with many proposed ideas from civil society, industry, and academia, the Department of Justice (DOJ) in July 2016 released draft legislation intended to address these concerns. The proposal moves away from the treaty-based system currently underpinning the mutual legal assistance process. Instead, the new legislation would require “lighter touch” bilateral agreements on this issue between the United States and participating countries. Once countries are approved for these bilateral agreements, the legislation would allow them to submit requests for data, made pursuant to the requesting countries’ laws and stipulations in the legislation, directly to U.S. electronic service providers, instead of first going through U.S. courts. The U.K. would likely be the first country approved to make requests under this new legislation, but the legislation would also pave the way for agreements with other qualifying countries. This legislation advances a legal solution for cross-border data access that proponents hope is sufficiently appealing to foreign governments to forestall more damaging alternative responses to data access concerns, including country-wide service bans, mandated data localization, or forcing companies to make decisions in the face of a conflict of laws.

* This publication is an adaptation of a briefing document originally created by the authors to inform discussions in the Berklett Cybersecurity project meetings about the proposed U.S.-U.K. agreement on cross-border data sharing and related issues.

About the Berklett Cybersecurity Project

Launched in 2015, the Berklett Cybersecurity project is a unique forum for discussing true and important, and often novel, facts, and perspectives, and achieving surprising consensus on enduring questions of cybersecurity. The project is led by Prof. Jonathan Zittrain and former National Security Agency (NSA) Director of Compliance John DeLong, in close collaboration with security technologist Bruce Schneier, and Matthew Olsen, the former Director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). More information about the project can be found on the Berkman Klein Center’s website: http://cyber.harvard.edu/research/cybersecurity

The Berklett Cybersecurity project is generously supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Research efforts that contributed to this publication were also supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

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with Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK and Berkman Klein Faculty Associate and Andreas Hepp, Zemki, University of Bremen, Germany
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Social order - what counts as order in the social world - is changing in the digital era, the era of deep mediatization. How can social theory help us understand this shift, and what are the consequence for fundamental democratic values such as freedom and autonomy?

Social and communication theorists Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp draw on their recent book The Mediated Construction of Reality (Polity 2016) to explore what happens to the concept and practice of 'social order' in the era of datafication. They start out from their proposal made in the book that today we are living in an era not just of mediatization, but deep mediatization where every element of social process and social life is composed of elements that have already been mediated. This shifts the question of media's 'influence' on the social into a higher-dimensional problem. Datafication is a good example of this, and its tension with classical forms of social phenomenology will be discussed in detail in the talk. Developing particularly the social theory of Norbert Elias (and his concept of 'figuration'), Couldry and Hepp will explore how social theory can help us grasp the deep conflicts that exist today between our material systems of interdependence (particularly those focussed on information technology and data processing systems) and the normative principles such as freedom and autonomy. Such conflicts as legal theorists such as Julie Cohen note are crucial to the life of democratic subjects and the orders (democratic or not) that they inhabit.

About Nick Couldry

Nick Couldry is a sociologist of media and culture. He is Professor of Media Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author or editor of twelve books including most recently The Mediated Construction of Reality (with Andreas Hepp, Polity, 2016), Ethics of Media (2013 Palgrave, coedited with Mirca Madianou and Amit Pinchevski), Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice (Polity 2012) and Why Voice Matters: Culture and Politics After Neoliberalism (Sage 2010). He is Visiting Researcher at the Microsoft Research Lab, Cambridge, MA during August to December 2017 and a Faculty Associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society for 2017-2018. Full bio here.

About Andreas Hepp

Andreas Hepp is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI), University of Bremen, Germany. He is co-initiator of and principal investigator in the research network ‘Communicative Figurations’ as well as the DFG funded priority research program ‘Mediatized Worlds’ (2010-2017). His main research interests are media sociology, mediatization, transnational and transcultural communication, datafication, and qualitative methods of media research. Publications include the monographs Cultures of Mediatization (Polity, 2013), Transcultural Communication (Wiley, 2015) and The Mediated Construction of Reality (with Nick Couldry, Polity, 2017). Full bio here.

Chris Bavitz notes the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s recent ruling in Brangan v. Commonwealth concerning the process of making bail determinations in Massachusetts, and how it might impact the use of algorithms in criminal justice.

If we are going to allow algorithms to play a role in certain aspects of the bail determination process, it is vitally important that we understand and make clear: (a) which questions those algorithms are helping to answer; (b) on what data sets those algorithms draw in reaching their conclusions; and (c) at what stages of a given legal analysis the outcomes prescribed by those algorithms may be relevant.

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Learn more about us in an interactive discussion with Prof. Jonathan Zittrain, Berkman Klein Center Faculty Chair
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If you’re interested in connecting with the Berkman Klein Center's research, community, and events, or are just generally interested in digital technologies and their impact on society, please join us for this talk!

Join us for our first Tuesday Luncheon Series of the academic year to learn more about the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University -- and its network of researchers, activists, faculty, students, technologists, entrepreneurs, artists, policy makers, lawyers, and more -- in an interactive conversation lead by Berkman Klein Center Faculty Chair Jonathan Zittrain. If you’re curious about connecting with our research, our community, or our events, or are just generally interested in digital technologies and their impact on society and the social good, please join us!

About Berkman Klein

We bring together the sharpest, most thoughtful people from around the globe to tackle the biggest challenges presented by the Internet. As an interdisciplinary, University-wide center with a global scope, we have an unparalleled track record of leveraging exceptional academic rigor to produce real- world impact. We pride ourselves on pushing the edges of scholarly research, building tools and platforms that break new ground, and fostering active networks across diverse communities. United by our commitment to the public interest, our vibrant, collaborative community of independent thinkers represents a wide range of philosophies and disciplines, making us a unique home for open-minded inquiry, debate, and experimentation.

Jonathan Zittrain is the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at the Harvard Law School Library, and co-founder of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. His research interests include battles for control of digital property and content, cryptography, electronic privacy, the roles of intermediaries within Internet architecture, human computing, and the useful and unobtrusive deployment of technology in education.

He performed the first large-scale tests of Internet filtering in China and Saudi Arabia, and as part of the OpenNet Initiative co-edited a series of studies of Internet filtering by national governments: Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering; Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace; and Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Board of Advisors for Scientific American. He has served as a Trustee of the Internet Society and as a Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum, which named him a Young Global Leader. He was a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Federal Communications Commission, and previously chaired the FCC’s Open Internet Advisory Committee. His book The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop Itpredicted the end of general purpose client computing and the corresponding rise of new gatekeepers. That and other works may be found at <http://www.jz.org>.

This paper focuses on the incorporation of risk assessment software into the criminal sentencing process, and offers a set of key considerations and questions for further research that can help local policymakers who are currently implementing or considering implementing similar systems

In the summer of 2016, some unusual headlines began appearing in news outlets across the United States. “Secret Algorithms That Predict Future Criminals Get a Thumbs Up From the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” read one. Another declared: “There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks.” These news stories (and others like them) drew attention to a previously obscure but fast-growing area in the field of criminal justice: the use of risk assessment software, powered by sophisticated and sometimes proprietary algorithms, to predict whether individual criminals are likely candidates for recidivism. In recent years, these programs have spread like wildfire throughout the American judicial system. They are now being used in a broad capacity, in areas ranging from pre-trial risk assessment to sentencing and probation hearings.

This paper focuses on the latest—and perhaps most concerning—use of these risk assessment tools: their incorporation into the criminal sentencing process, a development which raises fundamental legal and ethical questions about fairness, accountability, and transparency. The goal is to provide an overview of these issues and offer a set of key considerations and questions for further research that can help local policymakers who are currently implementing or considering implementing similar systems. We start by putting this trend in context: the history of actuarial risk in the American legal system and the evolution of algorithmic risk assessments as the latest incarnation of a much broader trend. We go on to discuss how these tools are used in sentencing specifically and how that differs from other contexts like pre-trial risk assessment. We then delve into the legal and policy questions raised by the use of risk assessment software in sentencing decisions, including the potential for constitutional challenges under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, we summarize the challenges that these systems create for law and policymakers in the United States, and outline a series of possible best practices to ensure that these systems are deployed in a manner that promotes fairness, transparency, and accountability in the criminal justice system.

This is a paper of the Responsive Communities project produced by Harvard students Priscilla Guo, Danielle Kehl, and Sam Kessler. This paper is a product of the students' work in the HLS Responsive Communities Lab course, co-led by Susan Crawford and Waide Warner.